P&P April 2016

The purpose of VC progression is “realizing the full potential” of people and systems. What’s in this for the workers? VC progression is not “one more thing” but rather a way to fully recognize your value and build support for achieving it. Improvements are defined as making an existing system part better. Innovations are defined as making a new and better part. Transformation is defined as making a new and better system. The VC lens and MM can be applied to mental health screening: l Regulative: high-integrity use of the screening l Collaborative: integrating this screening with others to provide a holistic screen l Integrative: ensuring that the screening enables root cause analysis vs. only identification of symptoms l Generative: looking at mental health screening across populations to identify opportunities for broader and humbling to know how much there still is to learn about driving system transformation. The VC lens and MM can be applied to the family involvement continuum: l Regulative: limited to efforts to receive a specific benefit or service l Collaborative: limited to receiving an array of fixed benefits and services Travels with the Value Curve has been, at the same time, exhilarating and humbling—exhilarating to see the types of break- throughs that are possible, intervention (e.g., high domestic violence linked to drug abuse)

operators when it comes to driving VC progression. Going forward on this journey, it would be useful to focus on this interplay of system levels in those systems making concrete efforts to use the VC. This focus should include lessons about the best timing of state and federal influence efforts, such as using effective demonstrations to drive broader structural reforms rather than the other way around. 6. Related to enabling VC progres- sion, adaptive leadership can sometimes be misunderstood as a forceful personal quality—“thinking outside the box,” “being bold,” or “having profound concepts to share”—when, in actuality, the required leadership approach has much more to do with how one guides and leverages the efforts of others when the solutions are not known. This approach to leading is more facilitative, flexible, and empathic in nature. 7. “I’m doing VC progression by another name” may be occurring in many systems, but the field currently does not have any quality control, evaluation, or accreditation-type mechanism to ensure this is true case by case. This creates risks for the VC model in practice, since practitioners will come to see their idiosyncratic efforts through the VC lens, without their sightline being accurate, and therefore without the effort being suc- cessful and sustainable. 8. A pleasant discovery of sorts is that most systems find they can augment their current approaches to strategic planning, practice model development, scorecard develop- ment, and so on with the VC stages, rather than having to replace these approaches with entirely new tech- niques. A related, nice discovery is that by and large, local partners and stake- holders find the VC model to be highly persuasive and attractive, maybe because of its focus on customers, service, and impact—replacing a prior focus on programs and benefits. In the course of learning these and other lessons about Value Curve pro- gression, an overarching lesson has been that the simplest way to describe something is often the best way. In that spirit, here are a few talking points about the Value Curve that have emerged in my own narrative:

l Integrative: full involvement in setting goals, assessing gaps and reasons, developing customized benefits and services, monitoring their impact, and making adjustments l Generative: involvement in devel- oping community-wide strategies to prevent trauma and build capacity The VC lens and MM can be applied to results-based accountability: l Regulative: measures that reinforce timely, accurate, and compliant service delivery l Collaborative: measures that rein- force customer satisfaction and ease of access across a spectrum of related services l Integrative: measures that rein- force testing and refining root cause hypotheses l Generative: measures that rein- force population-level prevention of trauma and achievement of positive outcomes Communication with staff can also be viewed through the VC lens: l Regulative: information is timely and accurate l Collaborative: vehicles for commu- nicating are more advanced l Integrative: communication with staff is a two-way dialogue l Generative: communication is a dialogue that focuses on empow- ering staff to create new tools and strategies In closing, travels with the Value Curve has been, at the same time, exhilarating and humbling—exhila- rating to see the types of breakthroughs that are possible, and humbling to know howmuch there still is to learn about driving system transformation. We’ll just have to wait and see what’s around that next bend in the road.

Reference Notes 1. http://aphsa.org/content/dam/aphsa/

Toolkit/Human%20Services%20 Value%20Curve%209-5-14.pdf

2. http://www.aphsa.org/content/APHSA/ en/pathways/NWI/BUSINESS_MODELS/ h-hs-integration-maturity-model.html 3. http://www.aphsa.org/content/dam/ aphsa/Toolkit/TOOLKIT_Moving%20 through%20the%20Value%20Curve%20 Stages_links.pdf

April 2016   Policy&Practice 23